


When Life Gives You Lemons

by Waistcoat35



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, France - Freeform, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kid John, Kid Sherlock, Lemon Orchards, Light Angst, Menton, Teen Mycroft, That's not an implication or metaphor or anything this is actually about lemon orchards, seriously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 03:38:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11371794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waistcoat35/pseuds/Waistcoat35
Summary: Mycroft thinks he's too stupid. Other children think he's too clever. His mother just thinks he's odd, and far too dreamy. His father understands, but he can't fix everything.When Sherlock's parents take him and Mycroft to France in order to arrange deeds for the piece of land their grandmother has left behind, the seven year old never expects to find a friend. But there's something about John, and about his grand-mère's lemon orchard, that makes him feel different. Complete, even.Now if only he didn't have to leave.





	When Life Gives You Lemons

The light cast over the boat was a ripe golden-yellow, gliding smoothly over the hull and slowly engulfing the rest of the ship, sliding and rolling, viscous as honey. It felt just as sweet, warming Sherlock's face and arms as he perched at the front of the vessel. If light such as this could be cast everywhere, perhaps it could change the world. Make it nicer, less cruel, perhaps. He could hope so, anyway. Sherlock Holmes was a boy of seven years old, going on eight. He was unusually smart for his age - or at least that was what his teachers had told him, what his parents had told him.

In his eyes that wasn't much, really - the other children his age were quite stupid, so being smarter than them wasn't a difficult leap. Even if it was, it wouldn't matter anyway. Mycroft would probably still think he was an idiot, no matter how clever he was for his age. That was, quite sadly, how it went with him. The other children didn't like him because they thought he was too clever; his brother wanted nothing to do with him because he was too stupid. It would be nice to find somebody who didn't really care what he was - cleverer than his peers, but not so much smarter than him. He wasn't quite as lucky as all that, though. So he would just have to make do with trying his best.

His father had said something like that, once - he'd felt bad, felt like he was inferior to his family due to their intelligence. SHerlock sometimes worried that that's how he made the other children feel - how Mycroft made him feel. It wasn't very nice - he knew that much. He'd said that to his father, and Mr. Holmes had ruffled his curls with a warm hand. "I try to keep up with them all, Sherlock. Sometimes all we can do is try."

They'd gone inside for lemonade then, sticky and golden and bittersweet, much like the conversation. Now Sherlock thought of it again, and he couldn't help but feel a slight pang for how things were and how they couldn't be. All he could really do was try to get by - his father was terribly wise in that respect, as well as in other matters - matters of the heart.

Now, swinging his legs over the rail as he sat down, Sherlock wondered if that was why he and father were so close - Mycroft had said it was because Sherlock was the emotional one. Sherlock could see the sense in that - his brother had always been closer to their mother, who had a sharp tongue and was quick as a whip. Something about that unsettled Sherlock - her intelligence was of a venomous kind, the kind that could hurt people far more than brute strength. His father's intelligence was a warm wisdom that felt far more befitting of the human nature. 

These thoughts slipped into the undercurrents of his mind then, as he saw a beautiful view in the dawn. As the boat finished it's journey across the Channel, he could see the French coast in the distance - the fishing trawlers that set out even before the sun were already milling around, with a few preparing to return the harbour. Snowy white gulls screamed and clamoured like bickering angels, smacking at each other as they scrabbled for purchase on the sand and on wooden posts in the dockyard, waiting for the fishermen to throw them any remaining tiddlers. 

Sherlock often thought that people who wrote stories went on a bit when they were describing the scenery - more often than was decent they made an awful lot of fuss over nothing, describing luscious green grass and heavenly daffodils and all that. However, once in a while there came along a sight such of this which made the boy admit that he did have something of a hidden poetic side - it wasn't hurting anybody, so it was something of a guilty pleasure to indulge in flowery language and fancy words to describe feelings and moments like this. He hoped that a lot of France was this beautiful - it made him feel cheerier. It helped him hope that things would turn out a bit better for him soon. 

They were going to visit his grand-mère's orchard in Menton - Mummy had received news of her death recently, and they had to work out what they were going to do with the lemon orchard that she had tended to for most of her life. Sherlock didn't really remember her - he and Mycroft had only been taken there once, and Sherlock had been too young to remember it, really. He had only been three, but he dimly recalled being sat on the counter with a glass of lemonade, sweet and cool with the rind still in it, music almost as sweet and soothing leaking from the battered blue radio. He'd been too far up for Mycroft to tease him, so while the grown ups talked he had just perched on the counter and closed his eyes, drifting in and out of sleep as he gazed at the sky out of the open back door.

He felt bad that it couldn't happen again, but he couldn't be truly upset about someone he hardly remembered. Mummy had taken the news with her usual cool demeanour, announcing the trip a few days later. Sherlock had worried he'd be bored, but it looked like France was interesting enough.

_Maybe you'll find a friend, the little voice in his head whispered meekly._

_But he pushed it away, and tried not to hope too much._


End file.
